Rusty Johnson

Explorer, lecturer, and author Rusty Johnson has given over 3,000 wildlife lectures at venues such as Princeton University, The American Museum of Natural History, The Explorers Club, Rutgers University, Marymount College, Dowling College, EF International Language Schools, New York Botanical Gardens, Long Island Museum of Science, Sierra Club, MENSA, and the National Audubon Society. He has assisted Jim Fowler of Mutual of Omaha‘s Wild Kingdom and his credits include Late Night with David Letterman, Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, The Late Show with Conan O'Brien, The Today Show and David Copperfield’s Magic for the 90’s Tour.. His lecture series at Princeton University has been rated to be the best of their Natural History Seminars. He is the author of The Twilight of the Wild (foreword written by Jim Fowler of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom) and he is currently writing a series of books about his ongoing adventures in the Amazon. Besides Rusty’s extensive knowledge of the natural world, he has many years of first-hand expertise. He is state and federally licensed for falconry, and for the breeding and raising of protected and endangered species, including Peregrine Falcons, condors, vipers, and cobras. He has also assisted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service in capturing Bald Eagles for vital research. His busy lecture schedule overlaps an itinerary of field excursions that have taken him to divergent destinations. He has monitored environmental decimation on an actively volcanic island in the West Indies, and he has also documented the dwindling elephant herds in the course of a 3,000 mile trek through southern Africa. He is the President of Amazon Detours, a Peruvian Amazon tour company, and in 1996, at the age of 25, he was one of the youngest people ever inducted into The Explorers Club. He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his daughter Ayla and wife Madeley, who is an Amazonian native.